Fresh Loaf

1. In the auction for Creative Loafing, the winning bidder is … (… these guys. Hey, they seem pretty OK!)

2. The mayoral ‘machine’ goes haywire, Reed fires back (Memo urges Atlanta’s black leaders to rally behind a single black mayoral candidate — to keep a white candidate out of office.)

3. Wendy Whitaker, symbol of flawed sex offender law, rearrested (When she was 17, Whitaker gave one of the most regrettable blow jobs ever.)

4. Sen. Jeff Chapman’s views on water conservation, water wars (Chapman’s one of the Gold Dome’s greatest enigmas — one of the few Republicans who doesn’t march in lockstep with his fellow pachyderms.)

5. Oxendine: Build an interstate through East Atlanta? Let’s talk! (Um, no.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Wendy Whitaker, the Harlem, Ga., housewife who was the subject of a 2006 CL cover story about Georgia’s then-new — and constitutionally shaky — sex offender law, has been arrested for failing to register a new address.

Whitaker is the lead plaintiff in a three-year-old lawsuit challenging the law by the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights.

In 1997, when she was 17, Whitaker was convicted under Georgia’s antiquated sodomy law — overturned the next year by the U.S. Supreme Court — for performing oral sex on a 15-year-old classmate. She was sentenced to five years probation and has had to register annually as a sex offender ever since.

At the time the suit was filed, Whitaker had been forced to move from her new house because it was too close to a church day-care. The law’s residency requirement prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or other place where children congregate.

Since then, several provisions of the law have been struck down or enjoined, including measures that criminalized homelessness among sex offenders; forced sex offenders to leave homes they’d bought before the law was passed; and prohibited sex offenders from volunteering at church. The bulk of the draconian law — authored by state Rep. Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons — remains in force as the lawsuit languishes in federal court.

(more…)

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This week’s cover story in the Economist is about the U.S.’s ill-conceived and counterproductive sex laws.

The story focuses not just on Georgia, but also on Wendy Whitaker – who is considered a sex offender in Georgia because when she was a 17 year-old girl she was caught performing consensual oral sex on a 15-year-old boy.

It’s an excellent story, and a reminder to re-read Scott Henry’s also excellent 2006 CL story about Whitaker.

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Whitaker, the subject of a cover story I wrote in July 2006 concerning the impact of Georgia’s harsh new sex-offender law, has been given notice by the Columbia County sheriff’s office that she’ll be removed from her house on Thanksgiving Day.

Lawyers for the Southern Center for Human Rights, which represents Whitaker’s constitutional challenge against the law, have filed for a Superior Court injunction to block her eviction. But they may be fighting an uphill battle; last week, a federal judge declined to grant a similar injunction.

Loyal readers will recall that Whitaker – who must register as a sex offender as a result of a consensual sex act when she was a teenager – was first ordered from her house in Harlem, Ga., two years ago when the home was discovered to be within 1,000 feet of a church-based child-care facility.

“Forcing Wendy Whitaker from her home is both pointless and cruel,” said Sarah Geraghty, Whitaker’s attorney. “Ms. Whitaker has never posed a threat to anyone and she does not belong on the sex offender registry.”

Why doesn’t she belong? The SCHR explains:

Wendy Whitaker’s offense happened 12 years ago, just after she had turned 17. The other student was three weeks short of his 16th birthday and they were both sophomores in high school. For this single act of consensual oral sex, Ms. Whitaker was arrested and charged with the crime of sodomy.

If Ms. Whitaker had committed the same act that led to her conviction today, she would not have to register as a sex offender at all. Because it occurred in 1996, she must register as a sex offender for life, have her picture posted on the GBI website and comply with all sex-offender residence restrictions and other conditions that treat her as if she was a predator.

As we say in the news business, that’s F’ed up!

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If the name in the headline sounds familiar, it’s because Whitaker was the subject of a cover story I wrote in July 2006 concerning the impact of Georgia’s harsh new sex-offender law. Whitaker, then 26, had been forced out of the house she owned with her husband in Harlem, Ga., on the outskirts of Augusta because the home was discovered to be within 1,000 feet of a church-based child-care facility.

For a while, the couple lived in a trailer park with relatives and she even moved briefly across the state line to South Carolina because the Georgia law bars sex offenders from residing near churches, schools, playgrounds, parks and other facilities, leaving her with few options for where to stay. The penalty for violating the law is 10-30 years behind bars.

Whitaker moved back into her house, however, after the Georgia Supreme Court struck down the law late last year, ruling the residency restrictions made it practically impossible for a sex offender to remain in his own home.

But the law was retooled this spring by the state Legislature and, in July, Columbia County deputies again told Whitaker she’d have to leave her house or face arrest.

Whitaker, who is the main plaintiff in an ongoing legal challenge of the law’s constitutionality, appeared again today before Federal District Court Judge Clarence Cooper. But this time, she left with even less hope.

Cooper ruled that lawyers for the Southern Center for Human Rights had failed to establish that the residency restrictions prohibiting Whitaker from occupying her home did not rise to the level of banishment from the county. Cooper didn’t explain his decision in depth, but it appeared he was swayed by an argument by lawyers for the Attorney General’s office that about 50 other sex offenders had managed to find some form of housing in Columbia County.

On the witness stand, Whitaker indicated that if she and her husband are forced to rent a place to live, in addition to paying their home mortgage, they’ll likely face foreclosure. “It will be bad for us,” she said.

Southern Center lawyers were also in court today to argue that the law imposes an unconstitutional ban on religious practices because many sex offenders have been barred from church activities. More on that later…

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